ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

OneEightNine Media Classic Hollywood at its most.. classic, I guess. The Thin Man films have a following and are an important part in the grand story of what made cinema great and etc, etc; however, this shouldn't be the first Thin Man movie you check out. In fact it should be the last. Not only because it was the last Thin Man but also because it far from the best Thin Man. I can't say it is the worst Thin Man, because I haven't seen most of them (I believe there are 6 or 7 of them). Anyway, the film isn't great but it is watchable. It is about a couple, a detective and his wife who are also martini drinking socialists who are on a gambling ship, on the night a murder occurs and they need to figure out who did it. Most of the Thin Man movies are similar in that they revolve around a who done it plot. I honestly couldn't stop watching it because it is charming and frankly a breath of fresh air from all the mindless films out there. 2015 was such a disappointing year for films and I have a bad feeling about 2016 as well. Thankfully, there are a lot of gems out there for people who know where to look and the Thin Man series has a few of those gems in it. Start out with watching the very first Thin Man movie and if you like it, continue on down the line. Anyway, this film was enjoyable and will keep you watching regardless of the drag at times. IMDb Isn't letting me give it a 6.5 out of 10 so I'll just round up to a 7.

binapiraeus Aboard a gambling ship where Nick and Nora are invited by rich David Thayar, the atmosphere is obviously pretty much poisonous - and by the end of the night, it becomes murderous, too: band leader Tommy Drake, hated by just about everyone on board, is shot. And suspect number one is - Phil Brant, who just married secretly Thayar's daughter Janet. So the newly-weds seek help from Janet's friends Nick and Nora; but instead, Nick turns Phil over to the police - but why? Because he wants him in a safe place, since he's afraid somebody might kill him - and a prison cell IS (temporarily, at least) a safe place...And then Nick and Nora start their investigations - and very soon we've got a whole bunch of suspects: clarinetist Buddy Hollis, who's become an alcoholic since Drake stole his girlfriend, the beautiful singer Fran (a great performance by Gloria Grahame!), gambling boss Al Amboy, whom he owed a lot of money, and of course Thayar, who disapproved of his daughter's marriage and might want to get Brant out of the way...And then there are the members of the band, of course, who haven't actually got a motive, but certainly hated their 'boss' enough to actually celebrate his death - but here the fun begins: Nick gets the second clarinetist, 'Clinker', to help him search for the vanished Buddy Hollis (he found a razor blade at the scene of the crime, and every clarinetist uses one for cleaning his instrument...); and so we (and Nick and Nora, who don't seem to be very up-to-date anymore on the latest music hits and musicians' slang) get a chance to see some really crazy jam sessions! But then things become serious again: they find Buddy in an asylum, completely deranged by now, then Fran is mysteriously stabbed in her apartment - and when Nick and Nora come back home, where they had left Nickie Jr. in Janet's care, they find them both missing... Could she possible be wanting to take revenge for the way Nick treated her husband?? Although at times a bit too melodramatic and complicated, even this last one of the 'Thin Man' films provides many different elements: a shade of Noir, a glimpse into the jazz world, some humor, some suspense, a quite intriguing plot, and good solid performances.The sad thing about this movie, though, is that the carefree, nonconformist, cheeky Nick and Nora that we knew at last are turning 'typically American', almost bourgeois: they've become rather strict parents (Nick spanks Jr. when he tries to sneak out to play baseball instead of practicing piano), and compared to the 'hep cats' of the band, with first and best Keenan Wynn as 'Clinker', they look - almost intentionally - pretty old-fashioned and stuffy. All this is a mirror of the general atmosphere in the US society toward the end of the 40s, of course; but it also shows that the good old days of crime comedy were coming to an end - and this film is kind of a 'swan song' for that great genre that had blossomed in the 30s and early 40s...

Terrell-4 Song of the Thin Man is a sad-sweet experience, something like meeting a good friend you haven't seen in years and realizing how much affection you still have for him... but also how much you both have aged. It's been 13 years since The Thin Man appeared in 1934. We have to stop and remember that Nick Charles wasn't the thin man back then; that particular thin man was just one of the many murder victims Nick and Nora came across in their six movies. We remember the sophistication and insouciance of this affectionate and clever couple. They were never at a loss for a quick come-back or to shake a cold, gin martini. Even Nick's modus operandi to bring all the suspects together at the conclusion and pick apart the case until he has the murderer squirming never quite got stale. Alas, with Song of the Thin Man we have the MGM factory squeezing out one more film to try to wring a profit from it, this time attempting to make it "contemporary" by setting the story in the post-WWII social world of after-hours jazz clubs, bebop musicians and hep cat dialogue. Nick and Nora never looked uncomfortable anywhere their adventures took them in the past. They look at times now as out of place as salesmen from Peru, Indiana, at a Linda and Cole Porter party. Gone is the sophisticated world of white sofas and polished black floors, of naughty Porter lyrics and earnestly sophisticated Gershwin tunes. Martinis seem oddly old fashioned now (and so do Old Fashioneds) as Nick drinks high balls and Nora sips sherry. And instead of clever repartee, Song of the Thin Man gives us the kind of dialogue only studio journeymen can write. Says one character, "I must have blown my top, kicking Buddy over for a road company Casanova like you!" The solution depends on the kind of half-baked, melodramatic psychology popular at the time. To make it even more tedious, there are no characters except Nick and Nora to care about. The movie is peopled with crooks, opportunists, gold- diggers, scat-talking musicians and the unattractive rich. The acting is so variable that it doesn't take long to realize we're watching the kind of movie that MGM did not waste much effort on. Why spend time on it? Two names: William Powell and Myrna Loy. Even though 13 years have elapsed, even though, at 55, Powell is a little fuller around the face (Loy at 42 doesn't seem to have changed a bit) and even though WWII altered decisively the world of films, they remain one of the most refreshing, attractive and delightful movie pairs in screen history. They raise the movie, if at least not to their level, to a level of enduring affection for their style, their warmth, their intelligence and, that word again, their insouciance. So three stars is too much for the movie but five stars is too little for them.

jbacks3 1947 was the last gasp for several long-running MGM series': Maisie bit the dust with Undercover Maisie, grumpy Dr. Gillespie rode out into the sunset on his wheelchair in Dark Delusion and, most notably, Nick & Nora untangled their 6th and last case in Song of the Thin Man. Unfortunately for fans (myself included), this was a pretty limp exit plot-wise. Powell, rather jowly and now well past the age of 50 was still playing Nick like he was capable of jumping shank-wielding thugs and comically weaning himself off the lure of the bottle. Loy and Asta don't look to have aged one whit. The plot involved the gambling boat murder of a womanizing band leader, Tommy Drake, who may--or may not--- have been in debt to the tune of 12G's and had a long list of enemies, including a drunken clarinet player, the gambling boat owner (and his wife), a hood, and any number of the boys in his band. Keenan Wynne's on hand as a hep-talking member of the reed section, whose got an enormous amount of screen time (L.B. Mayer had kept his promise to give him better roles in exchange for divorcing his wife so Van Johnson could have her). Eddie Buzzell directed this without noir or the late W.S. Van Dyke's cleverness. Nick & Nora still co-habitate in twin beds, live in a now zillion dollar Manhattan flat (noticably lacking a new-fangled TV per MGM edict) and there's an occasional glimpse of a fabulous car amongst some wildly cheap looking backdrops--- the irritating Jayne Meadows tools around town suspiciously in a V-12 Lincoln Continental convertible while Nick & Nora pile in and out of postwar suicide door DeSoto cabs. Without giving up a spoiler, the lesson here is never try to keep a dame in expensive jewelry.